Briyahna Desrosiers (left, North Lawndale Prep) talks candidly about her New Balance experience
Hi! It’s Briyahna again checking in with you guys. I recently had the great opportunity to go to the New Balance Indoor Nationals in New York City at the famed New Balance Armory Track Center. What a great experience for my teammates and myself.
We competed against some of the top high school talent in the United States. Our plane left O’Hare International Airport on Friday, March 14th at 5:45am. After landing in New York, we make our way to the Armory to pick up our meet packet and our New Balance bags for making it indoor nationals. We watched some of the Emerging Elite events and then headed off to our hotel to get focused for my big day on the Armory.
As I woke up Saturday morning, I felt nervous and anxious all at the same time. Coach Zontavious Johnson usually does a good job of keeping us focused on race day, but this day was different because it was my first “Big Meet.” So I had to get my head clear before I left the hotel. I could perform well in the 400m dash and the 200m dash. When we arrived at the Armory it felt like a big party there with music blasting and teams dancing; it was something I had never seen before at a track meet.
As race time approached, my other coach Dee [Danielle Gunn] helped me warm up as Coach Johnson watched us as he always does. First gun goes off in heat one of the 400 and the winning time was 54.6, and I’m like ‘what in the world did she eat this morning?’
After several more heats go by and now I am on the line for my prelim heat. The only thing that was running through my mind was get to the break line first. BOOM! The gun goes off and I knew that I was going way too fast. I was saying to myself ‘slow down, slow down’, but my body wouldn’t respond as I came through the first 200 in 24.5- which was way ahead of the pace that we worked on.
I got to the break line first and I tried to hold on about 320m in. I could not feel my legs and I knew I was in trouble. I finished in 56.54 and I immediately knew that I did not make the finals. I could see it on my coach’s face after I returned to the pit. Coach J didn’t look mad (I’ve seen him mad), but his look was more of compassion for me because he knew how bad I wanted to make the finals.
Coach Johnson spent the next 30 minutes building me back up so I could pick myself up and get to the line for the 200m. I cannot lie I was out of it after the 400m. I wanted to go and hide here- I had the 5th fastest 400m time in the country and I laid a big goose egg in New York.
I was able to make check in for the 200m and my heat came up. All I could remember thinking was just put together a good race and I ran 25.06. So my trip to Armory wasn’t as grand as I had hoped for, but the experience that I gained that Saturday afternoon is one I will carry with me through the rest of this year, and in to Texas A&M next year.
If you are in the Champaign area this weekend, come and check out my teammates and I. We will be competing in the Gene Armer Invitational at the University of Illinois Armory. Our boys will try and repeat as team champions, and my teammates and I will try to better our place from last year.
Finally, I would like to give a big shout out to all the Illinois athletes that made their way to NY and competed this past weekend. Congrats to you all and see you on the track!
